A row between the fast food giant Burger King and one of its major franchise owners has erupted over roadside signs proclaiming “global warming is baloney”.

The franchisee, a Memphis-based company called the Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC) that owns more than 40 Burger Kings across Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, has described Burger King as acting “kinda like cockroaches” over the controversy. MIC says it does not believe Burger King has the authority to make it take the signs down.

The Guardian shoved in as many cooking allusions as it could – which they shouldn’t have, but it’s forgivable – but the, ah, meat of the matter is that the Burger King spokesman says that they have the right to shut down this kind of signage on the part of its franchisees, and that the franchisee has agreed to take down the signs; while the franchise spokesman says that Burger King doesn’t have the right to shut down these signs, and that Burger King can… deal with it. The word ‘cockroaches’ was used in the latter’s response, as was an explicitly cheerful willingness to drag it out in court for the next ten years.

[[John]] McNelis added: “The [restaurant] management team can put the message up there if they want to. It is private property and here in the US we do have some rights. Notwithstanding a franchise agreement, I could load a Brinks vehicle with [rights] I’ve got so many of them. By the time the Burger King lawyers work out how to make that stick we’d be in the year 2020.”

Which is why I figure that somebody’s getting fired. You usually don’t have people in marketing making statements that are that direct unless they’re either sure that they won’t get fired, or that they’re sure that they will…